Agora is named for the Greek word for meeting place, or forum. It's set in Alexandria in the fourth century after Christ, when the Roman empire was in decline, and militant Christianity on the rise.

The central character is Hypatia, one of the first female philosophers and mathematicians ever recorded in the Westerb tradition. Tutored by her father Theon, a keeper of the museum and temple which contained many precious volumes from the Alexandria library, Hypatia was a mathematician trained in the neoplatonic school of inquiry. She travelled in Greece and Italy, then returned to Alexandria to conduct her own school. The real Hypatia was a specialist in mathematics: this film shows her obsessed with cosmological inquiry, which she shared with her students.

But when militant Christians challenge the Alexandrians' polytheistic worship of many gods, her father acquiesces in an attempt to teach them a lesson. The old order is overthrown: and as the Roman Empire weakens its hold; first scholars and then Jews are persecuted. Alejandro Amenabar no doubt intended this film as a parable about religious intolerance and in particular the intolerance of militant Christianity. Hypatia deserves to be better known; and that her devotion to freedom of inquiry over the duties of wife and mother are fascinating.

Rachel Weisz is fetching and sincere in her chiton as the earnest young philosopher; spurning both the former slave Davus, and a much more sexy swain, the musician Orestes, played by Oscar Issac.

But somehow sessions of platonic inquiry interleaved with scenes of battle and riots do not make for a very gripping film. This one is sludgy in the extreme. A pity. The woman credited with inventing the astrolabe deserved better. It may work on DVD as a cure for insomnia, if fascination with the odd mix of mainly British accents doesn't keep you awake.